Choosing A Guitar Tuner

If you've got a guitar then there's no ifs or buts, it's got to be in tune – and it needs to be tuned regularly. The choices are few. You either tune it by ear using a pitch pipe or some other pitch reference, or you buy an electronic guitar tuner. These can be pretty inexpensive devices so affordability isn't usually an issue. Deciding which one on the other hand, is. The truth is, most of the cheap ones do a good job. All you really need to know are some of the limitations and differences between them. Let's start with the most common, the typical tuner.

The Typical Guitar Tuner

These are the most common tuners of all. Portable / compact is a term often used to describe them but they don't have a specific name type. What I refer to as a typical guitar tuner is the little stand alone ones with a needle or digital display, including a built in mic and a line in jack. Something like the Korg GA-30 would be a good example. The main thing about these tuners is the option of using the built in mic or plugging the guitar straight into it.

They are simple to use but many of them do have a common problem. When using the built in mic they aren't always as accurate or reliable as plugging the guitar in directly. This is actually the most common complaint with guitar tuners. They work fine on the high strings but on the Low E and sometimes the low A string, they can have trouble detecting the pitch properly. If you look at the reviews you will find this same complaint with many makes and model of guitar tuner. Unfortunately it's a matter of you get what you pay for, although even some expensive ones can have this problem. So what do you do?

The experienced guitarist has been aware of this glitch for many years and in all honesty it isn't much of a problem. A lot of tuners with this problem work just fine when you plug the guitar in directly to the tuner. This issue happens mostly with the built in mic and one way around it is to try experimenting with the placement, bring the tuner closer to the sound hole or trying it further along the neck sometimes works. The easiest and most reliable way around it is to simply tune the guitar using a fretted note or a harmonic. So in other words, tune the open E string at the fifth fret and tune the string to an A instead. If that doesn't work then try tuning to an E at the twelfth fret or use the harmonic. Problem solved!

Clip On Tuners

Clip on tuners are a bit more than just cool looking gadgets. You see these little things clipped on to the headstock of an acoustic guitar. There's actually a reason you might want one of these over the compact tuner. They work by picking up vibration in the guitar neck. Why would that matter? Because it means you can tune an acoustic guitar in a noisy environment. If you've ever been in a band then you already know it's impossible to shut up the drummer and bass player! This is what makes the clip on so useful. Plus let's face it, they look cool!

Stage Tuners

The stage tuner is pretty much what it says, it's for using on stage. The main difference with these is they are built tougher and should have a bright fairly large display so that you can still use it on a dimly lit stage. Also because most guitar / bass players play standing, with the tuner sitting on the floor you need to be able to see the display easily without bending down. The stage tuner has one other very important difference. They can be muted. The foot pedal isn't just an on off switch. When pedal is pressed and the tuner turned on, it mutes the output so that you can tune your guitar without driving the audience or other band members mad. Most of them have the option to work in mute or bypass mode, often with a choice of two output jacks. Just choose your favourite mode, silence or annoy all!

Bass Tuners

Most guitar tuners will claim to tune both bass and guitar. The truth is, you can tune pretty much any instrument with any tuner. The drawback only lies in it's ability to detect lower pitches, obviously making this a bigger problem for bass players than guitarists. Just like mentioned above, this can always be gotten around by tuning the harmonic, fifth or twelfth fret. This might be a bit more annoying for a bass guitar because slight discrepancies in intonation are more noticeable on a bass. If you are fairly experienced then this isn't likely to be much of a problem but it does make more sense to buy a more expensive tuner with a good reputation for tuning a bass.

Chromatic Tuners

Lastly a word on chromatic tuners. Not all guitar tuners are chromatic. It might not matter to you if you are a beginner but in all honesty, all tuners should be chromatic. If you are desperate for simplicity and want the tuner to tell you the note names relating to the string you are tuning then the non chromatic might not be a terrible choice. For anything else, you should avoid them. There are two things that cannot be done on a standard non chromatic guitar tuner. You cannot check intonation and you can't easily use it to tune the guitar to a non standard tuning. This mostly applies to cheap guitar tuners. The more expensive chromatic tuners give you the option to use in guitar mode or chromatic. Failing that, buy a chromatic tuner and just learn what the notes are on the guitar!

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Musical Composition on the Guitar

There are a lot of piano players who are also well known composers. And there is good enough reason for this. The piano allows you to play about ten notes at one time. On the guitar, you can only play six. There are even some piano players who can play more than ten notes at once. On the piano, each hand can play something really different. The instrument allows you to play different parts simultaneously. And this advantage helps give the players a good chance of coming up with really beautiful musical pieces on the instrument. And for the same reason, more musicians or composers focus on playing the piano.

But this does not mean that the guitar is not a very useful instrument when it comes to composing songs. On the contrary, the guitar is one of the most useful instruments when it comes to composing music. It allows you in on a very different compositional perspective. And this advantage will be able to help you come up with a piece that you will not have come up when you use the piano. And this will also greatly benefit a freelance composer, like you.

The piano works a lot differently than a guitar would. The chords are formed and played differently. The melody notes are played above the chord on the piano. It can be argued that playing the melody and the chords at the same time is a lot easier on the piano, it is still important to know that you can compose and play songs on the guitar as well. Remember that notes and chords can be easily moved around the guitar. And the variety of chords on the guitar will help you come up with really great progressions and melodies that will definitely be a big help in your composition. Also, there are a lot of things that would easily just fall into place on the guitar that will be almost impossible to do on a piano. Take for example, sliding around chord shapes. This simply means that people who make music with the guitar will find it really easier to be able to slide through the chords than those who are using the piano.

Of course, it can also be said that there are things that can be done on the piano that will be difficult if done on the guitar. There are things that you may write that are just impossible to do on a guitar. And this just means that it will be a great advantage if you know how to compose songs with more instruments. Each of the instruments that you use will contribute to giving the songs a different perspective and help spice it up a little bit. That means you will get more variation in to the songs that you write.

There is no debate in which instrument, piano or guitar is much better to use when it comes to composing music. The idea here is to start with the use of an instrument that can play chords and then supplement the melody with harmonic devices. As long as you have an instrument that plays chords, it will be great to use for composition. Explore what you can don on the guitar that you will not be able to do on other instruments both when you play and when you compose. There is one unique characteristic in every instrument. And that is something that you can use to come up with really great music.

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